Xavier University Announces Healthcare Artificial Intelligence Summit

New Xavier Center for Artificial Intelligence will host event to accelerate adoption of AI in healthcare

August 7, 2017 — Xavier University has launched the Xavier Center for Artificial Intelligence (AI), a pioneering effort to accelerate the use of artificial intelligence to improve healthcare. The Center’s first major initiative will be the AI Summit on Aug. 24-25 on Xavier’s campus in Cincinnati. Xavier will lead representatives from the medical device and pharmaceutical industries and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to further develop artificial intelligence to promote and protect patient health.

In addition to learning from each other, attendees will form working teams tasked with developing plans that apply AI to solve their quality, regulatory and supply chain challenges. They will continue to meet in the months after the summit and present their solutions at the 2018 AI Summit. Solutions from the summit will be available for free for any company or organization across the globe to implement.

Representatives from the FDA, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly & Co., Abbott, Dell and IBM Watson Health will be among the speakers.

“We’re bringing together the major global players in artificial intelligence to focus on technology that could transform the healthcare industry,” said Marla Phillips, director of Xavier Health, which runs the Center for AI. “We believe the implementation of AI in the healthcare field is needed now more than ever.”

The Center for AI is a collaborative effort involving all three of Xavier’s colleges — Arts & Sciences, Professional Sciences and the Williams College of Business — presenting new academic opportunities for students across the campus.

AI could be used to improve patient safety, reduce drug costs, and avoid product and drug recalls, in addition to the advances being made in healthcare diagnostics, including the early detection of conditions such as dementia and depression.

AI Summit speakers will share how AI already is advancing healthcare, providing hope that AI will advance the diagnosis and treatment of complex conditions by putting powerful information in the hands of physicians. Participants also will learn how computers can be used to scan unstructured data to identify trends and patterns that humans are unable to detect. That can minimize failures in drug and product safety, moving organizations from reactive to predictive mindsets.

“Some people think that artificial intelligence is still just a concept, that its practical application is still years away,” Phillips said. “But it’s been used for years in many applications and has tremendous potential to make a difference in the pharmaceutical and medical device industries.”